


War Wounds

by RandallsRedTie



Category: The Hour
Genre: Backstory, Other, War, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandallsRedTie/pseuds/RandallsRedTie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lix has left Randall in France and moved back to London...and not long after the Germans start bombing the city....</p>
<p>Also I'm new to this site so bear with me! :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Wounds

London, 29 December 1940

Lix pulled another pair of socks out of the bureau in her tiny basement flat. She pulled them on over the pair she was already wearing. She also wore two pairs of pyjamas and her warmest coat. It was after ten on a blisteringly cold December night and the temperature inside her bedroom was not much higher than freezing. Normally she’d have the tiny electric heater going to stave off the bitter chill but two hours ago the air raid sirens has started blaring and not long after all of London had gone dark in anticipation of the coming Luftwaffe. And come they had. For the past hour Lix could hear the sound of bombs in the near distance, could feel the ground beneath her tremble. For the past three months the German forces had been steadily bombing London, the attacks growing more and more frequent. The Blitzkreig they called it, Lightning War.  
Tonight sounded worse than any of the previous attacks. With each passing minute the explosions grew louder and louder, closer and closer. She mentally went over the quickest route to get to the nearest bomb shelter. She pulled on a pair of shoes, grabbed the few things she thought she might need, stuffed them into her suitcase, and left the flat to venture to safety. The air outside was cold and sharp, Lix’s breath fogged heavily in front of her. The streets were dark but there were other people making their way hurriedly into the night, seeking the shelter of the underground bunker. In the distance she could see flickering light. A quick sniff of the air let her know something, somewhere was burning. The sky lit up over and over with the flashes of bombs, the sound becoming deafening. Families with small children bundled into blankets, elderly couples shuffling along together as fast as they could manage. A woman carrying two unhappy cats rushed by Lix, nearly knocking her to the ground. The woman looked back long enough to mumble an apology then kept moving. Then a sharp, loud whistle. Then the world around her exploded, a flash of light and a mighty BOOM. A sharp pain in the back of Lix’s head and the sensation of falling. As Lix fell to the ground she could hear screaming but it sounded wrong, sounded too far away. Under that was a high-pitched ringing in her ears. She hit the ground with a groan, felt the wind go out of her. When she finally regained her breath acrid smoke filled her lungs, causing her to cough violently. The world around her seemed instantly transformed. Bright orange flame consumed the building on the left. The world seemed to spin and Lix knew she was badly hurt. She raised a hand to the back of her hand and found it covered in sticky warmth. In the orange firelight she could see the blood covering her hand. Her suitcase was on the ground a few feet to her right. She tried to push herself up but this sent a blossom of pain through her skull and the world to spin out of control. As luck would have it a young man was coming through, making sure people were OK. He spotted her and rushed over.  
“Miss…miss are you alright?”  
“I don’t think so no, I seem to be bleeding quite badly from a cut in the back of my head.” Lix could barely hear her own voice or the young man’s, ears still ringing from the blast. He could tell she was dazed so he took it upon himself to pick her up and carry her to safety.  
“There’s a hospital not far from here. They’ll probably be flooded but at least we can get you out of the street. What’s your name?”  
“Lix. You can call me Lix.” she answered. She barely heard him introduce himself as “Barry”. As he carried her the world around her grew dark. Before long Lix was unconscious in the young man’s arms…  
When she came to she was in a hospital bed, an IV drip leading to a needle in her arm. The room is full of noise, full of nurses coming and going, of the noises people make when they‘re hurting. Lix couldn’t tell how long she’d been out but it must not have been too long because injured people are still being brought in. She could feel a bandage wrapped around her head. As she pushed herself up into a sitting position a matronly nurse came over to check on her.  
“Well well I see we’re awake. How’s the head love?”  
“It doesn’t feel too bad, like having a bad headache.”  
“Well that’s not too bad then. You had quite a nasty gash back there but we got you stitched up. Overall the doctor thinks you’ll be fine. You should be able to leave by tomorrow. He just wants you to stay here overnight to make sure everything is fine with you and the baby.”  
Lix cringed at the last word the nurse said then played it off as a wince of pain. Ah yes, the baby. Her hand moved down to the swell in her abdomen. Her baby… Randall’s baby. And after he or she arrived, someone else’s baby…  
“Oh thank God.” Lix said, knowing the nurse would expect such a reaction. The nurse smiled down at her then moved on. Lix let her hand linger on her belly a bit longer, felt the child within her stir under her touch. Randall didn’t know that she was pregnant, or at least if he did it wasn’t because she told him. They had left Spain together to go to France when war broke out in Poland. Lix’s body ran like clockwork and when she had missed her second period she knew exactly why. And it scared the life out of her. She’d faced war and death and the brutality of evil men but this she couldn’t face. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t tie herself to Randall for the foreseeable future and raise his child with him. If he knew about the baby he’d beg her to stay, beg her to marry him. He was in love with her and she certainly loved him but she’d never give herself over completely to someone else. And he’d have that look on his face that she couldn’t say no to and she’d give in and she’d be miserable forever for it. Or so she believed.. So she fled, leaving nothing more than a note saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. Please don‘t hate me and please don‘t try to find me. - L” She knew Randall would be hurt and later furious at her leaving but he was in France and she knew him well enough to figure he wouldn’t try to contact her. She’d gotten a job at a paper as a photographer on the back of her stunning coverage of wartime Spain. Luckily no one there knew her or Randall so the story she made up of having married a French soldier who’d been killed in a car accident and left her pregnant with their baby. She even wore her mother’s wedding ring on her left finger to stave off the rumormongers.  
And so Lix, feeling terribly tired, laid back in the bed. Even with all the noise happening around her she drifted quickly into a dreamless, uneasy sleep.


End file.
